Earlier this week, Rick Mercer (Canada’s answer to Stephen Colbert, but also gay) called for better adult role models for gay teens, following the suicide of 15-year-old Jamie Hubley, a gay teenager from Ottawa. He says:
“It’s no longer good enough for us to tell kids who are different that it’s going to get better. We have to make it better now. So If you’re gay and you’re in public life, I’m sorry, you don’t have to run around with a Pride flag and bore the hell out of everyone, but you can’t be invisible. Not anymore.”
Basically, you need to watch this video:
BAM.
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I find it interesting, though, that after each one it seems he is invited to go on various news/radio shows and ‘come out’ again (like in his interview with the current earlier this week).
Hey, now. If anything, Colbert is the States’ distant echo to Rick Mercer.
This rant has been spinning great nationwide discussion.
I was impressed by Thursday’s in-depth interview with Mercer on The Current on CBC Radio 1 (similar to NPR, for you Stateside folk), and also the half hour that Ontario Today spent on Friday opening a discussion on Mercer’s call for public figures to out themselves. The boomer generation makes up a huge chunk of CBC Radio’s audience, and the station does a great job of keeping content just edgy enough to be inclusive of the echos without alienating the boomers. A lot of closed-minded, small-town folk listen to CBC–but thanks to programs like Q, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi; and Definitely Not the Opera, hosted by Sook-Yin Lee (which has featured Effing Dykes, btw, and Sook-Yin is queer), I feel like a nationwide cultural shift is palpably in the making.
rick mercer has done a couple of gay psa type videos in the past, its so nice.
I know!
I find it interesting, though, that after each one it seems he is invited to go on various news/radio shows and ‘come out’ again (like in his interview with the current earlier this week).
Great video.
RICK’S GAY!?!?!?!??!?! OMIGOD THIS JUST MADE MY DAY!!!
Also: <3 the video.
I love love love Rick Mercer
Just going to put it out there that Stephen Colbert is America’s answer to Rick Mercer.
Rick made 22 Minutes in ’93, and Stephen didn’t show up on TV until ’96.
And The Rant has been one of my favorite things forever.
Where have the plus signs gone I want to plus this
+1
ditto :D haha Rick is awesome!
Just what I wanted to say. Rick Mercer was on my radar for at least a decade before I first heard of Colbert
Hey, now. If anything, Colbert is the States’ distant echo to Rick Mercer.
This rant has been spinning great nationwide discussion.
I was impressed by Thursday’s in-depth interview with Mercer on The Current on CBC Radio 1 (similar to NPR, for you Stateside folk), and also the half hour that Ontario Today spent on Friday opening a discussion on Mercer’s call for public figures to out themselves. The boomer generation makes up a huge chunk of CBC Radio’s audience, and the station does a great job of keeping content just edgy enough to be inclusive of the echos without alienating the boomers. A lot of closed-minded, small-town folk listen to CBC–but thanks to programs like Q, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi; and Definitely Not the Opera, hosted by Sook-Yin Lee (which has featured Effing Dykes, btw, and Sook-Yin is queer), I feel like a nationwide cultural shift is palpably in the making.
I.Love.This.Guy. Makes me so proud to be Canadian. Fuck yeah Rick Mercer!!!
EVERYONE, regardless of sexual orientation and level of celebrity, needs to do everything in their power to make it better!
Flawless!